Archive for the ‘General’ Category

No this isn’t a out of work, or college days story where peanut butter, cup of noodles, or mega doses of cheap MAC and cheese. It about the beloved, by many, Apple computer.

I have been working with computers for a very long time. The first time I laid hands on an Apple MACintosh was about 1982. Now some 34 years later I am doing my day to day systems administrator duties on a MAC.

I wasn’t happy about this. I don’t use Apple products. Oh I’m glad they are there! Apple is innovative and helps drive the more conservative companys forward. Mouse (well they go that from XEROX), 3.5″ floppy drives. USB, the list goes on.

We all have a tendency to like what we know best, or first. In this case that was MS DOS, MS Windows, LINUX, UNIX, VMS, etc… What’s one more operating system to learn, right?

Well after using a MAC for seven days I can say, it’s just like MS Windows. There are just two things that I don’t like about it. The close, minimize and window/full screen buttons are on the wrong side, and you can’t move them. And instead of having the menu bar on the window (Where God intended it to be) it’s at the top of the screen. Where there are three things, the price is way to high for a Windows PC! I didn’t have to buy this, or any of them for the company so that really isn’t my problem, but a bit of a concern since I like to save the company money not waste it.

Would I consider buying an Apple MAC computer? No.

Would I recommend an Apple MAC to anyone else? No.

Is there any Apple product that I would recommend? No.

Apple makes a fine product. It’s is very consistent, and professional looking. I hear their customer service is top notch, which is another plus. Is the MAC any easier to use than MS Windows? No.

From what I’ve heard so far every piece is significantly more than the non Apple counterparts. It’s not easier to use, it works just like Windows and you can buy the hardware from companies competing for your business which drives down the price. The only reason I can think that ANYONE buys an Apple product is due to a cult like following that Apple has managed to create.

Deep down this is probably why I have been so anti-Apple for many many years.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts. After all I could be wrong! I’ve only been using a MAC for seven days, and it only took about three to get comfortable using it.

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No this isn’t another Bob Beckel hit piece, and it’s not about the members of “The Five” talking over one another, it’s about a story they discussed on Friday (March 13, 2015). “Hostile sexism”, professor Judith Hall, of Northeastern University in Boston said, “Benevolent sexism is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing that perpetuates support for gender inequality among women.”

Really? Well I’m glad people think about things, and are smart enough to be able to express those thoughts to us, because you never know when it might just be revolutionary and good, however in this case I cannot disagree more.

Recently I was at Sam’s Club. After making my selections, filling my shopping basket, I found my way to one of the least crowded lanes, in fact I think I caught it just as the last person was leaving it. The young lady that was working as a cashier came around to my basket and started removing items and placing them on the conveyer belt. After only one item I told her, “That’s okay, I’ve got it.” She responded it wasn’t a problem she was happy to help. A little more forcefully I said “No please stop, I’ll get it.”

Reluctantly she stopped, had a confused look on her face as she was walking back to the spot in front of the cash register. I continued to unload the basket. After a brief pause she asked, “Why didn’t you want me to help?” I stopped unloading the basket, looked her in the eyes and said. There’s a reason I am bigger and stronger than you. I appreciate your offer of help but I should be the one unloading the basket.

She was visibly surprised, and said “That’s so sweet.” This really made an impression on me. I couldn’t think about how sad it was that this young lady had not be treated this way in the past. What must our young men be doing when they interact with women these days?

I am smart enough to understand that you can “do” things for people that they don’t want you to do. I leave it up to the individual woman. If I offend someone by opening the door, they can tell me and I’ll push them down, close the door behind me. 😉

I will continue to open the door for my wife, my daughters and the occasional strangers when the need arise.

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Wow really, October 2013 was the last post here?!?!? Amazing how time speeds up with your having fun, or sleeping! 😀

Anywho… So my little experiment is doing well. No not something I’m cooking up in the mini fridge that my wife has been banned from cleaning, a little website I started over five years ago. The xjtalk.com site. It’s a website about Jeep Cherokees. A forum, so I don’t have to come up with content, other people do! Well that’s a bit of a misnomer since when a site is starting out content has to come from somewhere and I think most of the time it’s from the person/people that start it.

It has a life of it’s own now. I still love posting and interacting with people, but it good to see that it doesn’t need my constant involvement now. I think one of the reasons I haven’t posted here much is I have so many avenues to get what’s in my pointy little head out. Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and a podcast! I say “A” podcast because the “Tony and Josh Show” has been on hold since the end of 2013. It was a good decision as it gives more time to focus on the other, older, podcast, the XJ TALK SHOW!

My co-host and I, Josh, have been building an audience for over a year now. Josh joined as official co-host in November of 2012 and as a registered, card carrying smart-ass, having someone to play off of is a much better fit for me. The chemistry seems to be a good one to. It’s amazing to me that out of the three off the wall things I’ve tried at least two are doing better than I hoped.

Here’s a promo that Josh and I did. We do one at the end of each podcast recording, which you can also see live on Thursday nights at 10pm CT. at youtube.com/xjtalk

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A popular movie of the mid 80’s had a phrase that was used over and over, “There can be only one!” I am speaking of the movie “Highlander” in which a man lives forever battling immortals, like himself, until there is only one immortal left. What if in truth it wasn’t “there can be only one” but “there is only one”? I was an only child, well in truth I had a half brother but he was eighteen years older than I and moved out about the time I was born. I never knew a time living with anyone other than my Mother and Father. As you may have guested they were older parents and didn’t have much energy to spend with their child. At least not by the time I was old enough to be able to remember.

No other children my age near by I spent a great deal of time by myself. One thing I would do when I was really bored was play checkers. I’d make a move then spin the board around and make the second move. It was obvious this was just an effort in futility. I knew both moves and there was little hope that I would do more than obtain a tie. What if there was a way that I could play checkers with myself, but have two different sets of memories, learning, etc… To be able to “forget” that I was the person that just made the chip move from one square to the other. At this point it would at least seem challenging and I would be pitted against someone of the same age, skills, etc… Now we’re talking about a much more interesting game!

So many times you see things in the news, or sadly sometimes in your own lives that makes you question.. “Why would God allow this?” I know I have especially when children are involved. The extermination of the Jews during World War II comes to mind as well. So many things, horrible things, that people do to people. There may even be things that we do that have unintended consequences that hurt people many years down the road.

Recently I was watching a show where they postulated that our universe is merely a hologram, a simulation. They spoke of the pieces that make up matter being so small and spaced so far apart that there was more nothing than something in everything and all of us. That force fields is what bump up against each other when we touch something. The Higgs Boson field is what makes everything REAL. Dark matter and dark energy necessary for galaxy formation and our existence. A delicately balanced set of settings necessary for everything to work as it does.

Have you ever played an online video game? Any would do but I’m thinking primarily of the first person video games. You move around a world full of things that you can touch, bump into, shoot just like reality, and when you die you can leave your body until you re-spawn, or restart the game. No one likes dying but in the big scheme of things it isn’t that big a deal.

Then one day one possible answer dawned on me, really as a joke, to explain all this. As I thought of it the more sense it made.

There isn’t a we there is only a me. There can only be one, and the one is me.

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Hey guys, it’s been a little while since I’ve made a post on the TonyMuckleroy.com site, but not to despair because I haven’t been sitting on my hands. I did that once, and both my hands and butt went numb. Anywho… Some of you know that I have a Jeep Cherokee podcast. Josh is my co-host on that show and with recent events in the news, primarily I read that some big time auto makers will be including the ability to play podcast in their new automobiles (you know making it easy for the simple folk) I contacted Josh and asked him if he wanted to start another podcast. One more about general things. A general talk show.

He said sure! We have a lot of fun getting on Skype and pretending to be big time RADIO personalities, so even if no one listens, we’re having fun. We’ve even set up a website, http://TonyAndJosh.com/ We record the podcast on Thursdays at 10pm Central Time and since it’s just as easy to do that and broadcast on UStream at the same time, well we do that too! So if you really don’t need to sleep before work on Friday why not join us at http://ustream.tv/channel/the-tony-and-josh-show/ at 10pm CT. You can make comments in chat and we even take live calls.

So far we’ve done three episodes. Each is about an hour long. We’re on iTunes, Stitcher and soon Zune.